Middle Georgia Technical College

Programs Debut at MGTC

June 17, 2006

Author: Jake Jacobs, Macon Telegraph Staff Writer

Spring is the time of year most associated with "new," but Middle Georgia Technical College is expanding the season to include summer. The college will offer two new programs during its summer quarter beginning in July --- one in barbering and the other in bank teller certification. Robert Beaver, vice president for instruction services at the college, said he expects both programs to be well attended. "Cosmetology has been one of our bigger programs over the years," Beaver said, and the barbering program grew out from it.

The bank teller program will help address an expanding need in the area, he said. "The banking industry is growing here, and we're going to give students training in banking practices and finance, such as customer service, and the various office machines used at a bank," he said.

The college will continue to add to its programs with the fall quarter seeing two new associate's degree offerings in applied science. One is health-related --- a nursing and surgical technician, he said. Students in the program may take other general education courses in addition to their training, such as sociology and psychology, and obtain a two-year degree. The other new offering for the fall is in technical studies geared toward aerospace, and students likewise may take general education classes to get a two-year degree. "What we're doing is responding to an expressed need," he said. "We prepare students to go to work and satisfy a need in this area for trained employees."

In addition to filling a need, another thing Middle Georgia Tech does is what all state Department of Technical and Adult Education institutions do: Offer area businesses graduates with a little something extra. "We guarantee employers that for the first two years after graduation if a student is not performing satisfactorily, then we'll give them additional training for free," Beaver said. "It works like a warranty."

Another way Middle Georgia Tech helps its students is the "mini core" setup and agreement with the University System of Georgia's Board of Regents. Under the agreement, core courses such as English and mathematics can receive full credit if a student transfers to, say, the University of Georgia. The agreement has been going for more than four years now, Beaver said, and has helped many students, who don't have to retake classes. "This is especially important now, with the hours cap on classes covered by the HOPE scholarship," he said.

Besides the schools governed by the Board of Regents, others such as DeVry and Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta are accepting Middle Georgia Tech's core courses from transferring students, he said. For students staying in the area, the school has a cooperative program with Robins Air Force Base.
"Our technical education students have four areas where they are eligible for the program: aviation maintenance technology, aircraft stress technologies, electronics technology and machine tool technology," Beaver said. Students in the program have to maintain at least a B average. The school nominates them and, working with base managers, selects those for the co-op. Students entering the co-op have alternating six-month cycles --- an on-the-job training cycle and a classwork cycle --- that they do until they complete the program.

About 200 students have completed the co-op program through the years and are employed at Robins, Beaver said. There are about 100 students in the cycle right now. "This is a major area for that kind of work, and we anticipate an increase in those programs," he said. "Our students get a high level of training, and our pass rate is at 98 percent to 99 percent for students taking license tests for the first time." For the future, Beaver said, the school sees expansion on the campus and more students attending. Currently, the school has 992 full-time and 1,226 part-time students, for a total of 2,218 students, according to Linda Mazzarella, marketing and public relations coordinator for the Middle Georgia Tech.

"We do anticipate an increase in enrollment, especially with new programs like the bank teller training, for example," Beaver said. "There are a lot of people working as tellers and the need is there." The school is looking at the needs of area businesses with an eye to offering more programs, he said, though health care and Robins Air Force Base remain the main focus of Middle Georgia Tech.

"As needs are identified to us, we will continue to implement new programs," he said. A new one coming will be a culinary arts program for the food and restaurant industry, Beaver said. "We had one some years ago, but now the restaurant industry is growing here." The campus will grow, too, he said, noting that a $33 million early child care facility has been approved and the college will have a greatly expanded bookstore in the next few months. Other plans include additional classroom space, he said, and an expanded dental hygiene facility.